Mo Folchart (Fraiser) drags his daughter Meggie (Bennet) all around the world completing his skilled work as a 'Book Doctor', otherwise known as a bookbinder. At their most recent home, an old enigmatic acquaintance of Mo's, named Dustfinger (Bettany), shows up and, in a very rare moment in their relationship, Mo talks to Dustfinger in private. All of a sudden, the next morning, Mo packs up and leaves with Meggie without telling her what is going on, a very strange thing in their relationship. They travel to Meggie's Great Aunt Eleanor's (Mirren) house to stay and Meggie finds herself, once again, surrounded by books (Eleanor is rich, and collects rare books. She calls them her children, and she has thousands of books in her library).

Then, one night, a bunch of thugs arrive at the house and kidnap Mo to take him to see Capricorn (Serkis), a cruel and evil dictator.

Meggie soon finds out that Mo has the ability to read characters out of books. The only drawback is that when he brings something out of a story, something must go back in to replace it. this is how Meggie lost her mother, Theresa (Guillory), when she replaced Capricorn and Dustfinger, characters from the book: Inkheart.

Determined to get Mo back, Meggie sets out with Eleanor to Capricorn's village; however, within a short time of arriving there, both women are also abducted and locked up with Mo.

Dustfinger soon comes to the rescue and smuggles them out with a boy, named Farid (Gavron), who came out of 'Arabian Nights'.

Now, the group of them must find a way to get another copy of Inkheart to send Capricorn and his thieves back into it's pages and return Dustfinger to the home he misses so much.